LANDSCAPE CHANGES IDENTIFIED BY APPLICATION OF THE CORINE LAND COVER DATABASES: CASE STUDY - PART OF THE ZÁHORIE LOWLAND

Landscape changes are proper indicators of natural (climatic and hydrologic) processes, but above all of human influences. Changes of physical state of landscape, which is represented by land cover processed by the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) method, are the means of their identification and assessment. Comparison of land cover databases from the 1990's and 2000's (CLC90 and CLC2000) are applied to analysis of the short-term landscape changes in a part of the Zahorie lowland by means of the GIS technology. Analysis of the long-term changes and development of the landscape is presented by comparison of the natural (reconstructed) landscape with its present state, represented by land cover from 2000 (CLC2000). Basic statistics of these changes presented by means of tables and maps (figures) document the development of landscape, ways of its use, intensity of human activities, and their environmental impact.